


the last time we had this conversation

by majesdane



Category: Skins (UK)
Genre: F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-10-14
Updated: 2010-10-14
Packaged: 2017-12-06 09:44:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,304
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/734268
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/majesdane/pseuds/majesdane
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>Or maybe it was him that had changed.</i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	the last time we had this conversation

  
when he told the truth it never sounded like the truth but it felt like the truth.

\-- _the story of bartlett_ , richard siken

 

 

 

He didn't care about the past and he never thought about the future.

Those sort of things didn't concern him. To him, it was always about the future, about today, about this one fleeting moment that they were living in. Fuck yesterday and fuck today, when it tumbled into tomorrow. Fuck plans and fuck whatever came first. He had dreams, but he didn't dwell on them. Today held all of the answers. Today was the day when those dreams would become forever, when everything would fall into his lap. Today was the only thing he let himself wonder about, not the past and future that stretched out endless to both sides of him.

It wasn't as if he meant to fall in love. Love was one of those forever sort of things. A future kind of thing that scared him. He didn't like the idea of waking up in the mornings with a headache from thinking too hard about someone. He wasn't keen on the sense of drowning, of having all of the air sucked out of the room every time someone touched him too gently or mouthed words against his ear.

But he knew it was love, when he felt that sharp pang in his chest at the thought of her leaving him behind. Of her getting over him. He knew it was love when he watched her dance while pretending not to, peering over his glass and noting the curve of her hip and the way she always seemed to smile more when her eyes were closed. He liked the way her lips looked pursed around a cigarette and the way she said his name. Like it just rolled off her tongue, effortlessly.

Sweet.

He liked how touching her felt like touching himself, in that they simply felt like extensions of each other. He thought back to the girls before, some that he could remember (but most that he could not) and wondered what they'd done differently. Wondered if they'd said the wrong things or their perfume was too strong. Senseless things like that. There must have been something different between them and her. If only he thought about it long enough.

Or maybe it was him that had changed. Maybe nothing had been different.

 

;;

 

These days, he's quieter. It's lucky, then, that Naomi doesn't feel the need to ask him things.

He knows she wants to. Wants to ask him all of those things he never, ever wants to talk about. Like what it feels like to see Effy in the hospital, in her yellow and white clothes, sitting on a bed that smells of cotton in a room that smells like disinfectant. He tries to talk to her sometimes, but there's not much left to say. When she looks at him, he can sometimes see the old her. How they used to be. But it's not really _her_ anymore, just someone else staring at him out through those eyes, brilliant blue. He remembers thinking about them every day in prison; every day he went outside, he'd look up at the sky and wonder if it could ever be that colour.

Mostly he doesn't talk, though. They just sit by the window and watch the day end, watch the moments and minutes and hours slip away. Sometimes she touches him, lays her hand on top of his. He wonders when they became like this. Silent and still and as cold as statues. Wonders if maybe he could fix things, if he tried hard enough.

Naomi says, We missed you, you know. It wasn't right with you gone. You sort of belong here, I think.

Yeah, well, Cook says, rolls a cigarette. Maybe we all do.

Naomi's cool. She gets it. That's why Cook has always liked her. She doesn't need to have things explained to her or anything like that. Doesn't ask for apologies. Acceptance for responsibility, maybe, yeah. And honesty. But Cook's all right with those things -- at least, now he is. But all of those other things, he could never stand. Still can't stand.

He was surprised to find out when he got back that Naomi and Emily were still in Bristol. He'd come around to Naomi's house right after prison, just to see if she was there -- and she was. London could wait, she'd said, rolling a fag and licking the sides closed. Right now they just wanted to wind down from travelling.

It was sort of nice, that they'd stuck around. He didn't really know who else there was to go talk to. Not Effy, with her white walls and blank stares and murmured words that he knew weren't for him. Not Karen, who he could never look at straight in the eye -- not without feeling guilty, that is, as if it were somehow all his fault. Not JJ, who stammered and took such great pains to avoid the subject that Cook felt physically ill just listening to him. Not Panda and Thomas; they'd both fucked off to America.

And not Freds, not anymore, though he tried not to think about that.

You should get out of here, though, Naomi said, reaching over and deftly plucking Cook's cigarette from his fingers, resting her head on his shoulder and taking a shallow drag of it. Maybe you belong here, but it's no good for you. No good for any of us, really.

I don't know where to go, he says.

And it's true. Bristol's really the only place he's known. He doesn't count his dad and where he lives. His dad was a cunt and Cook doesn't like to think about him. It just makes him angry and sad and he has to ball up his hands into fist until his knuckles go white and his joints turn sore. Bristol is all he's got left, anyway. And maybe Effy will get better.

(Or maybe not.)

He isn't sure which vision of the future he likes best. Either way, he can only ever see himself as a loser. He lost Effy, lost Freddie. Lost his dad and mum and brother and lost his friends. Lost his heart, too, and he doesn't know how to get it back or how to patch up the hole that's left there in its absence. It doesn't matter what he thinks about: a future where Effy gets better versus a future where she doesn't.

In both worlds, he still doesn't have her. Not anymore.

 

;;

 

Cookie's got nothing, he thinks. Everything's back to normal, then.

 

;;

 

There he is all right, messy hair and dirty clothes and easy smiles. Rolling a spliff, sitting at the end of Cook's bed and looking at him so expectantly that he snaps out a _what_ without even thinking, a bit nastier than it should be. Doesn't wash away the smile though. Or the smell of weed. Got to be real. Can't be real. Won't be real, not if he bothers to think about it. Don't think about it, don't try to rationalize. Just be happy you've been given it.

Cook presses his face against the sheets.

Thought you'd come 'round by now. Bit lonely.

Yeah, well, Cook says, keeps his eyes squeezed tightly shut. Got better places to be, mate.

His mouth feels dry upon waking. He downs half a bottle of vodka, chucks the rest out the window, goes back to sleep.

 

;;

 

Emily always looks at him with sad eyes.

Usually he just waits outside on the bench on the green across the street from her and Naomi's flat, with a text for Naomi to come outside. Not that he doesn't like Emily -- he does, really -- but he doesn't like the way she looks at him. As if she expects him to just break down and start crying right in front of her. He wishes he could just say something about it, but he feels a little guilty about her feeling sorry for him considering the amount of times he's thought about shagging her girlfriend. Or fiancé. Or whatever they're calling themselves now.

(Not to mention the handful of times when he almost _has_ shagged Naomi.)

He isn't really that sad, though. He is, but he isn't, and he thinks Emily probably sees him as a walking disaster, a complete and utter emotional train wreck, but it's really not like that. He's always seen sadness as a sort of thing that's meant to be forgotten about; just don't think about it and it won't come 'round to bother you. But he guesses it's all right to let other people feel sad and sorry on account of him, if they really want to.

Emilio, man, he says, and hopes that his grin is wide and bright enough to convince them both of its sincerity.

Emily always tries too hard. He knows it's not her fault, that it's only in her nature, but still it makes him uncomfortable. Emily sits on the big window seat, staring out into the street while Cook sits stiffly on the sofa picking at a rip in one of the cushions. The silences between them are less awkward than they used to be a few months prior, but they'll never be like the silences he shares with Naomi.

But he and Naomi are different, yeah. In a way sometimes, he thinks Naomi's a bit like Effy. Quiet, observant. A lot softer around the edges though, because of Emily. He thinks maybe Effy may have done the same thing to him, without him even knowing it. It isn't fair, he doesn't think. It's exactly why he never liked the idea of love; it makes you lose all control of yourself.

(And now he can't get back the parts of him that he lost from loving her.)

We missed you, Cook, Emily says, like she's been thinking about it for a long time now, getting up and ducking into the kitchen for a second, returning with a bottle of vodka. She takes a small drink of it before passing it over to Cook and plopping down on the sofa beside him with a sigh. She's wearing a tight, low-cut top. When she sighs again and leans against him, he can see right down the front of it, as he sips the vodka slowly.

You know, she says, I was thinking about how I never said --

He knows where this is going. All conversations go there with him, in the end. Your tits looking fucking mint from this angle, Emilio, he says, cutting her off with a grin and a waggle of his eyebrows.

(Arm's length; not too far, but not close enough either. Perfect.)

Emily smiles at him. It's that kind of smile that means she knows. Knows what he's doing. Yeah, she says, alright. Cool.

She's all right; he's always thought so. Soft, too. Quiet, mostly. Compared to him, anyway. One of those lovely type of birds that he doesn't meet very often. She'd probably be a wicked shag. Too bad she's all hung up over Naomi, he thinks and wraps his arm around her, just because it feels nice and beside him she seems so small. He thinks it's weird, how she always just _looks_ like she needs protecting. She doesn't, he knows, but she looks it anyway.

The vodka burns on its way down his throat, settles in his stomach like fire.

You alright? she asks, after some time.

He shrugs, drops the empty bottle off the side of the couch. Yeah, s'pose.

She leans up, presses a kiss to his cheek, looks at him with wide eyes. He lied; he doesn't like it when people are sorry. Not because of him. Not _for_ him. Fucking lezzas, man, they're well emotional. She wants to say it -- _sorry_. She wants to, but she won't. She knows he can't stand it. He thinks, maybe that's why Naomi loves her like she does. Maybe not. Or maybe it's less of a knowing and more of plain uncertainty. Either way.

Tell Naomikins I came 'round.

Yeah.

(Just like that. Easy.)

 

;;

 

He puts his palms against the stone, feels the cold against his skin, the ridges of the engraved letters under his fingertips. It should feel more real than it does, he thinks and pulls back, as if looking at things from a wider, more far off angle will help. Bring things back into perspective. Maybe it's not what he feels, maybe it's just about what he can see. He narrows his eyes, squints. The words on the stone get a bit blurrier, start to swim. Not tears. Just blurriness.

That's all.

The grass is too fucking long. He kicks at it, suddenly furious. It's too fucking long and the lazy fuckers that are meant to be the caretakers should get out here and fucking _take care_ of it. It isn't right. He kicks out again, wildly, knocks aside a small pot full of dead flowers. Typical.

Fucking stuck, is what he is. Can't go back and can't go forward.

Wishes he was back inside her room, with its eggshell-white walls and the smell of fags and tequila and sex. The bed that was just a bit too big, with the over-sized duvet on top, sweet as hell, Peachy, and the stereo on the other side of the room quietly playing on without care, songs about dreamy loners, lovestruck kids, depressed students. Fuck it. He can't remember a thing else. Just the sheets against his skin and her fingers in his hair.

(Her dress draped over a chair, his pants and shirt in a pile on the floor.)

Oi, Freds, he says. The name feels unfamiliar on his tongue now. He's not used to that. Miss me?


End file.
